Developers Rejoice: The Pangolin Has Landed

Finally we’re proud to announce WC 2.2 (Prowling Pangolin) is live! 2.2 is our 9th major release and has been in development since 2.1 was released back in February.

Some Stats on This Release

To highlight the work that’s gone into 2.2, since 2.1 I would have loved to have shown more stats from Github, but instead saw this:

This comparison is big! We’re only showing the most recent 250 commits

I think that pretty much covers how much work has been done, but from the data I was able to scrape there have been:

• 47 contributors
• 1670 commits
• 553229 additions
• 972950 deletions

That’s staggering, so huge props to everyone who has contributed via Github, and also not forgetting the translation teams on Transifex!

Release Highlights for Developers

• PUT, POST and DELETE endpoints added to the WC REST API. Developers can find the documentation here: http://docs.woocommercev2.apiary.io/
• An (experimental) webhook system in the API (see the above docs for usage).
• Rewritten order statuses from a taxonomy to true post statuses === faster reporting, easier queries. Compatibility instructions can be found here.
• New Refund system (see http://develop.woothemes.com/woocommerce/2014/08/2–2-prowling-pangolin-beta–1-release-and-highlights/
• wc_get_order() functions and extra helpers for creating orders programmatically.
• Payment Gateway enhancements to support refunds and the storing of transaction IDs. Developers can find some instructions on implementing these features here.
• Language pack downloader – Lets us push out translation updates separate to core and keeps WooCommerce itself lighter.
• Variation stock handling – Extra options for stock management at variation level, including some new meta data and methods.

Upgrading to 2.2

Aside from testing before pushing to live (use a staging site) developers should be aware of the upgrade script which runs in 2.2. The script will:

1. Update some deprecated options such as woocommerce_ship_to_billing.
2. Convert the old order statuses (taxonomy) to the new ‘post status’ formats.
3. Update variations to include new stock meta data.
4. Add new capabilities to admin users for webhooks.

Users will be prompted to run this in WP admin after upgrading.

What Comes Next?

WC 2.3 has already been scoped out and planned to be a UI focussed release. We’re hoping to speed up our release cycles as of 2.3, so keep an eye on Github and feel free to get involved.

And for everyone attending our first WooCommerce conference, see you in November!